Barrows equipment degrades as it is used. Equipment received from the Barrows minigame is fully repaired and can be used for 15 hours of combat until it degrades completely and requires repair before it can be used again. Barrows armour degrades even if the player is using protection prayers or not taking damage. Like the Crystal ward and crystal bow, Barrows equipment does not suffer in performance as it degrades from fully repaired to fully degraded. Fully repaired Barrows items start out with no numbers in their names, e.g. Verac's brassard. It will become Verac's brassard 100 the first time it's used in combat. Eventually it will degrade to Verac's brassard 75, then 50, then 25 and finally 0 at which point the armour will be unusable until repaired. Additionally, Barrows equipment may only be traded if fully repaired or fully degraded.

When dropped or lost on death (even when placed under a gravestone), any piece of Barrows equipment will automatically degrade to 0. Players who attempt to drop Barrows equipment will receive a warning message about this.

There are two ways to repair Barrows armour. Players can talk to any of the NPCs listed below and they will repair the items for a price, or repair the pieces themselves using an armour stand in any player-owned house. The equipment can be repaired at any stage, and the cost will be adjusted according to how much it has degraded. The repair costs below are as if the equipment has fully degraded.